Shanghai copper rose nearly 3 percent on Thursday to a 15-month high after London futures extended a 1.7 percent rally in the previous session, buoyed by supply concerns and the dollar's first decline in five sessions.
Smelters are caving into demands for lower treatment charges from miners - Japanese and Chinese copper smelters have agreed to a 38 percent cut in 2010 fees with Freeport-McMoRan illustrating that the market for concentrate is looking tight. That tightness could be exacerbated if miners at one of the world's biggest copper mines, Codelco's Chuquicamata in Chile, reject a final pay deal. Earlier this week, unions voted down an initial offer.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rallied $110 to $7,110 a tonne by 0704 GMT, off a 15-month peak of $7,170 struck early in December. Shanghai's benchmark third-month copper futures contract ended up 2.7 percent, its biggest one-day rise in three months, at 57,110 yuan a tonne. It hit a peak of 57,150 yuan earlier in the day, the highest since early September last year.
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